“You may be right, Crichton.”
I go up to the turret. It is the most charming and feminine of all the spaces in this big old house. If she opened any of the books, she would see her mother’s bookplate inside them. But she is not reading. She is instead devoting her time to feeling immensely sorry for herself. I can see the coverlet shaking with sobs. Ridiculous, given she was punished almost a full eight hours ago. Her crying also means that she has not been able to hear me over the volume of her self-pity.
“Nina?”
The bedding stiffens, as if my voice has turned her to stone.
“I can see you are under the blankets, little girl. Come out.”
“I don’t want to.” The blankets defy me.
“Do you think disobeying me is a good idea?”
She pulls the blankets back and looks at me with rather more sass than I’d expect from someone sobbing her eyes out after a very small chastisement.
“I’ve been informed that the room you were in was not, in fact, locked. So I do owe you an apology.”
“Oh,” she says.
“Come down for dinner.”
“Where is it?”
“In the dining room.”
“No. Where’s the apology?”
That sentence is the first indication that this brash American brat is her mother’s daughter.
I crouch down to put us at the same eye level. “I’m sorry I gave you an undeserved spanking. I’ll let you take it as credit against the next one you earn. Deal?”
“I’m not going to earn any such thing!” She scowls at me and pulls the blankets to her chest. Her cheeks are tear-stained, her eyes are red, and her expression is adorably defiant. I very rarely enjoy disobedience in any form, hence my original reaction to what I thought was a breaking of my rules. But she is already pushing the boundaries of what I will and will not accept.
“I am a grown woman and you have no right to strike me.”
“You’re a likely-to-be-convicted criminal living under my roof so you don’t have to live in a prison. If you’d been spanked more, you likely wouldn’t be in this position, but here you are. I maintain discipline in my home, Nina. And in your case, that will mean spankings if I see fit.”
“No,” she whimpers, but in a less petulant way, as if she is coming to terms with the notion, even though she does not like it.
“Yes,” I reply. “Now come downstairs and let me feed you. Let’s not add starvation to your list of unjust punishments.”
She rallies from the bed. There is something soft and adorable about her now, something that arouses my basest impulses. She fits well in my home, this American fish out of water. Looking at her sends me back in time twenty-five years, when I was younger than she is now.
“Come down,” I tell her.
She does as she is told.
When we enter the dining room, Jonah has apparently changed his mind about living on snacks and is already at the table eating. He seems to be of solid disposition, difficult to disturb.
Nina is the opposite. She sits carefully and proceeds to pick at the food without really eating anything. I have little patience for displays of petulance or disobedience, and I consider this both. She is fortunate to be here, and even more fortunate to be fed. There are thousands who cry out for a fraction of the kindness she has been shown and yet she has the gall to sit and pout and stir the very good food about her plate with the tines of her fork as if she has never been taught how to use it properly. It is almost enough to put me off my dinner.
Nina
I still know next to nothing about Father Bryn. I don’t know why he offered to take us in. I don't know why he has a portrait of my mother in what he thought was a locked room. I don't know why he is sitting at the head of the table glowering at Jonah and me as if we have intruded on his home.
But I do know one thing: he will spank me.
That alone is a lot to process, more than I need in my mind during this meal. It’s enough to make the food seem tasteless compared to the swirling thoughts and feelings making themselves at home in my body. I certainly can't allow them into my brain. They'd cause absolute havoc there. As long as they seep around my stomach and my chest, they can’t get to me.
Dominant. The word floats to mind. That’s what he is in every single way. It might be the only thing he is. He’s not sympathetic. He’s not warm. He’s not cozy. That sweater he wore when we first met was designed to evoke all those ideas, and all it did was make a mockery of them. He's not wearing it now. He's wearing a soft knit black sweater that makes him look a little more like a reverend, and a lot more like a dangerous, looming beast.